


The Pain of a Clear Sky

by SoWrongButSoWrite (CinnaStarks)



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, F/M, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 17:50:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8456041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CinnaStarks/pseuds/SoWrongButSoWrite
Summary: Set right after 2x06. Chloe's usual coping mechanism finally fails after Lucifer attempts the unthinkable.





	

The fog sets in on Chloe’s drive home.

It seeps into her bones, works its way through every muscle fiber and courses through her veins. The songs from radio become beats with no meaning. The scenery passing by her new car becomes nothing but colors. 

“A coping mechanism,” her therapist had called the numbness Chloe first felt after her father died. “You should be fine, so long as you don’t let it interfere with the rest of your life.”

And it never did. People had noticed when the life left her voice, a symptom that Dan had become particularly aware of, but they always understood why. Chloe Decker had chosen to deal with the worst Los Angeles had to offer and bring them to justice. She had chosen to see things no one should and make decisions that no one could. As such, being able to detach herself emotionally after a hard night was a regular superpower. 

The fog thins when Chloe sees her daughter and roommate huddled together on the couch. It’s not enough to awaken her exhausted heart or bring the warmth back to her skin, but it is to give her something to smile about later. Careful not to wake the two, she spreads a nearby blanket over them and walks towards her room. 

One step. Two steps.

Something catches her eye as she passes Trixie’s room.

 _“Mommy, can you help me hang this?”_ Her daughter had asked as Chloe tried to make sense of the boxes that would eventually become her daughter’s room.  _“From the ceiling fan, please?”_

The fog dissipates even more as Chloe remembers the way her heart had sunk at what her daughter was holding. “ _Are you sure, Monkey? I don’t want you to be reminded of that night any-”_

 _“But Lucifer saved us with this!”_ Trixie had protested, shoving the paper airplane closer to her mother’s face. “ _When he threw this over, it gave us time to hide from the stupid man!”_

Of course, she had been right. That plane had been one of two ways that Lucifer had saved them that night. The second had simply overshadowed it with a gunshot that, after years of hearing them on a regular basis, Detective Decker should not be so shaken by. 

And yet, there she is. Standing in the middle of her apartment, frozen in terror as that single shot begins to repeat itself in her head. The fog is nowhere to be found, leaving her in a state much like the airplane before her; hanging from a thread with no way of saving herself if it breaks. 

“I almost lost you.” Chloe barely notices the words fall from her lips or the steps she begins taking towards her daughter’s bed or the door she closes behind her. “I thought you were dead, Lucifer. Dead.”

The sobs that have been building up in her chest since that last conversation with him finally break through. Though her legs quiver, begging for release in the form of Trixie’s bed, Chloe remains where she stands. 

“Do you know how terrified I was that night?” She asks. “You were the first person I considered I friend in years and-” Her voice cracks with another sob. “-I didn’t want it to end. Not yet.”

A draft tilts the plan towards her, displaying the scribble of a man Chloe has almost lost twice now. 

Calloused fingers curl into tight fists. “And I still don’t.” Chloe tastes salt on her tongue but doesn’t brush away the tears she can feel trickling down her cheeks. “But you tried, didn’t you? Why?” Any anger that once reverberated across her vocal cords dissolves into desperation. “What could possibly make you want-” Another burst of unbridled frustration rips its way through the detective’s body. “-to kill yourself?” 

An eternity of silence follows those three words. So innocent when separated, but painful when shoved together into a single phrase.

“After all you’ve done for me, my family, the LAPD, and so many other people-” She finally whispers in a single breath. “-why won’t you let me return the favor?"

Resisting the urge to rip that plane from its string, Chloe moves to her room and collapses into bed. As her body finally gives into the day's events, she hopes that her dreams do not show her what could have happened if Lucifer had succeeded. 


End file.
